


to dream or to love

by sqhlove (ziontea)



Category: The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation, 魔道祖师 - 墨香铜臭 | Módào Zǔshī - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù
Genre: Alternate Universe - Office, Angst, Drinking, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Break Up, dream investigators, mentions of wen clan and lan qiren and nie huaisang and the whole gang
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-06
Updated: 2019-04-06
Packaged: 2019-12-30 13:07:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18315860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ziontea/pseuds/sqhlove
Summary: It is only after months of being apart, does Wei Wuxian contact Lan Wangji once more.





	to dream or to love

**Author's Note:**

> This is my contribution to the MDZS Zine Project hosted on twitter, [here](https://twitter.com/mdzszine/status/1112685678062559232)! Although the theme was love, I chose to go a different route - one wherein wangxian are together no more. This is likely a look, or rather, a prequel into what will come to be a bigger project of mine, so stay tuned!
> 
> The website is [here](https://mdzszine.wixsite.com/website), and you can download the whole e-zine for free, if you so please!

Wei Wuxian sighs, rubbing a palm across his brow in minute exhaustion. The fatigue lines every bone of his now; he’s positive that it’s a sign, but of what, he’s not so sure. 

“Sir?” Wen Ning knocks on the door gently. Before, he would just sit quietly at his desk in front of Wei Wuxian’s office, taking calls and making notes and silently adding them to Wei Wuxian’s calendar.

He’d been shy upon his hiring and Wei Wuxian had had to teach him how to _be_ demanding, how to not let everyone walk over him as his family had—a family who had disowned him the instant they learned that he would accept the job offer to become Wei Wuxian’s personal assistant.

Personal assistant in name only, for they were better as friends anyway. It isn’t Wei Wuxian’s fault for wanting Wen Ning to become a part of the dream extracting team that he, Jiang Cheng, and Jiang Yanli had begun a few years back.

Despite Jiang Cheng’s rightful loathing for the Wen siblings, he too knew that Wen Qing and Wen Ning were advantageous to their team.

Wei Wuxian motions for Wen Ning to come in. He tries to smile — _tries_ to be positive — but it’s so difficult knowing he really has nothing to live for, save for this business that was not even his, was never his to begin with. 

It was a pity grab. He used what little he’d learned from university and applied it to the budding field of dream work. Within the mind’s inception.

“You asked for this, boss?” Wen Ning passes the thick manila folder to Wei Wuxian.

Wei Wuxian tilts his chin down, enough to just barely graze the top of his chest, and takes it. He can’t help the air of steady silence that encompasses the room, Wen Ning faltering after he’d passed the file along.

“You may go,” Wei Wuxian whispers. His voice trembles, stuttering with every breath. It is hollow, though there is not much to say when he hasn’t quite felt like he’s had a soul in years.

Within the file were photographs, articles, information about the company owned by a man who had once been the light of Wei Wuxian’s life. 

Who is still his light, though the man does not know such any longer.

Wen Ning bows, a courtesy that Wei Wuxian is still not used to, despite the younger’s insistence. It has been a long time since he was given respect, but he never quite expected it anymore.

It wasn’t as though he deserved any semblance of it, anyway.

Right as the younger man leaves, Wei Wuxian bends forward until his forehead meets the mahogany of his desk. He hadn’t quite anticipated the turn of events from the past five years, much less from the past six months. 

When he opens the file, there it is. It’s a photograph with details listed for pages afterward, a photograph of his ex, Lan Wangji.

The image of Lan Wangji’s expressionless face leaves a rancid taste in Wei Wuxian’s mouth. His heart flips over twice, his stomach churning. 

He can’t afford to still feel what he did. It wasn’t possible to feel _anything_ for the heir to Lan Corporation, not when he couldn’t uphold any of the traditions that Lan Wangji grew up on. 

He couldn’t even give Lan Wangji that much when they were still together. 

He exhales shakily; the coffee in his mug is emptied. It was his second of the morning, so it’s not mentally sound to ask Wen Ning to bring another. Instead, he opens the cabinet behind where he’s sitting and brings out the bottle of cognac that he saves for days like these, pouring it into his mug.

He stops after a normal amount—pauses in consideration—before pouring even more generously. With the way his mind reacted to the image of their next… target, he would need to be less sound to make proper decisions.

He stashes the bottle away quickly before Wen Ning can see what he really poured into his mug before Wen Ning calls his sister Wen Qing—Wei Wuxian’s best friend and their unwilling doctor—and tells her he’s been drinking till he drowns on the job again. 

HIs phone rings; not many people call him nowadays, not that he has any right to be contacted. Jiang Cheng would only contact him if he procured information on their next target, and well, he had delivered.

Caller ID shows that it is Wen Chao. Wen-Dog, like Jiang Cheng and Nie Huaisang would so lovingly call him.

Wei Wuxian shakes his head. He lets the call go to voicemail, knocks back his drink.

Of course, his phone rings again. Wen Ning turns in his seat; he hadn’t received the call, but then again, Wen Chao and his father, Wen Ruohan, had made sure they had a direct line to Wei Wuxian’s office.

Wei Wuxian upturns his nose and scoffs, displeased.

Wen Ruohan was a coward who had too much on him to ever leave him still; Wen Chao was just a disgusting man born into the right family.

He peeks back at the file just as the phone goes silent once more; Wei Wuxian knows he is playing with fire, but it is difficult to follow the commands of such seedy men.

This time, Wen Ning’s phone rings. The man pales, evidently; from where he is sitting, Wei Wuxian can tell that Wen Ning’s hands are trembling. He picks the phone up, silently, then immediately connects the call to Wei Wuxian’s line.

Wei Wuxian can feel Wen Ning’s pleading glance at him as he stares down the incessantly ringing device. He sighs, combing back the hair that had fallen out of his ribbons and picks up.

At one point in time, Wei Wuxian hadn’t been allowed near the premise of the Jiang family home. What was just a mishap; a wrongfully injected drug — for _research_ — had caused complete destruction upon the family.

Though it was never his intention, never his motive, he’d been slapped in the face by a restraining order. He’d been kicked out of the company that he’d helped his foster family build up, thrown out as if he were just rags. 

It was then that Lan Wangji had seen him—for the first time since they had graduated university—and had picked him up from his guilty self. Had helped him through everything without any blame; of everyone nearby, Lan Wangji was the only one who saw him as he was, but did not judge. Rather, he placed him on a pedestal, one he didn’t deserve.

Lan Qiren still despised him, though no one could despise Wei Wuxian as much as himself; however, as time passed, Jiang Cheng forgave and forgot.

Jin Zixuan and Jiang Yanli accepted him back into their lives; Jiang Yanli, crying in all pained regret.

* * *

Jiang Cheng calls immediately after Wei Wuxian hangs up on Wen Chao, utterly displeased.

He opens the liquor cabinet and pours out rum this time, filling the mug almost to the brim. His drinking was warranted, in his opinion, but if Jiang Cheng found out then he’d be strangled.

“What?” He can’t help the exhaustion that seeps through his voice; the bitter tone that laces every word.

Jiang Cheng snorts through the line. “What crawled up your ass?”

Wei Wuxian can’t tell him. He’d like to. However, it would entail telling his brother that their next contract not only was assigned by the Wens but also that their next target was Lan Wangji.

Jiang Cheng would staunchly refuse on both counts. Who cares if the funding from the Wens would keep their team afloat for a couple more months? Dirty money was still money, right? 

And it isn’t as though he and Lan Wangji are tied together anymore.

Wei Wuxian made sure of that a year ago. And now the Wens were going to use their broken relationship to ruin the Lans forever. 

“Nothing,” Wei Wuxian says after a slight pause, the bite in his voice taking him aback.

“Doesn’t sound like nothin’,” Jiang Cheng comments. There’s a rustling noise in the background; probably old dreamscape blueprints being shuffled around.

“What do you want, A-Cheng,” Wei Wuxian sighs, leaning his head back into his chair. He opens the file. The mission was to ruin the Lan family, ruin their reputation, their business. The Wens should have known that Wei Wuxian had already come close to doing just that months prior, when he and Lan Wangji were still together.

“Wondering if you got into contact with that anonymous contractor… weird that they want to stay anonymous, but I guess we’ll know who it is once again we get ahold of their desired target.”

Wei Wuxian almost bites out who it is, ruining the hard-earned trust he’d gained from Jiang Cheng again.

“Yeah. I have. Still won’t give me their name—” Wei Wuxian takes a large swig from his drink, letting the fire burn down his throat. “But I have the target’s name.”

“Yeah?” Jiang Cheng’s voice crackles through the line. “Let’s hear it then.”

Wei Wuxian rubs his hair, tugging at the loosened strands. He almost lies, _almost_ ruins it all.

It’s unforgivable, what he is about to do to the love of his life, but it is necessary. It isn’t like they’d see each other again, anyways… right? 

“Lan Zh— Lan Wangji.” He catches himself in the nick of time. 

“What? You’re fucking with me.”

It’s the astonishment in Jiang Cheng’s voice is what actually does him in. Wei Wuxian gasps, his head shaking desperately. 

Keeping the cell close to his ear, Wei Wuxian finally lets his head fall forward onto the desk, and cries.

* * *

“This is not good for him,” Wen Qing comments on the offhand, watching as Wei Wuxian paces his office. Jiang Cheng remains nonplussed, his arms crossed across his chest passively.

After the brutal meeting wherein Wei Wuxian finally revealed to his family and partners who really had hired him, he’d been unsettled. They couldn’t back out, not when Jiang Cheng finally learned what it was that the Wen family was holding over Wei Wuxian’s head. Blackmail, but worse.

“He needs to get a fucking grip, that’s what,” Jiang Cheng whispers back, ferociously. Wei Wuxian can hear them, he always has been able to, but it is safer to ignore their questions, their qualms.

“No, he has a grip,” Wen Ning pipes up, for the first time that day. Jiang Cheng glares at the younger, unamused. “It’s just that he’d rather _not_ listen to reason. That, too, reminds him of Lan Wangji, after all.”

“They need to make up or come to terms with what happened,” Jiang Cheng hisses. Wei Wuxian pays him no mind. He walks over to his liquor cabinet and pulls out a handle of vodka.

“You think that’s about to happen?” Wen Qing flinches; Wen Ning usually never was one to speak his mind so harshly. But, when they see Wei Wuxian uncap the bottle for a drink larger than normal, do they move to act.

“Maybe… it’s time to talk to him, yeah?” Wen Qing tries, her voice steadier and less mean than usual. If she could have her way, she’d knock some sense into Wei Wuxian and throw his liquor down the toilet if she could. 

She was the only other one to see Wei Wuxian’s complete breakdown besides Lan Wangji, years ago.

“What the fuck?” Wei Wuxian snorts, dipping his neck to take another swig. “You want me to talk to _him_?” 

“Well, obviously neither you nor he is doing well.”

“You’ve got it quite wrong, actually,” Wei Wuxian simpers. The misery is clear on his face. Lan Wangji was the only one to implicitly understand him, but Wei Wuxian had known his family was always more important. And, with the tradition that the Lan family upheld, Wei Wuxian had never and would never manage to fit in. “He’s likely doing as well as possible, but the thing is, he’d never let his misery show.”

Wei Wuxian waves at himself then waves the bottle around in the air.

“See? I’m the one who broke it off, not him. If he had it his way, he’d leave it all for me, but it‘s not like he’d be happy, would it?”

Jiang Cheng mutters under his breath, displeased. They all knew this fact. Wei Wuxian would throw himself at the bottom of a pit if it meant the happiness of everyone save for his.

“What _you_ don’t understand that headlines aren’t everything, you dumbfuck,” Jiang Cheng seethes. Wen Qing and Wen Ning look at him, startled, but he’s had enough. “You think he’s happy? At least he _smiled_ when you were still around, now there’s not even a hint. Apparently, he’s fallen from Lan Qiren’s favor as well.”

Wei Wuxian starts, his jaw dropping slightly. Wen Chao’s file hadn’t mentioned this.

“What the fuck does that mean?”

Jiang Cheng smirks. It pains him, but maybe his brother and his beau will attain some form of closure for once. Maybe the charade of dream extraction wouldn’t lie between them again. 

“It means exactly that. So fucking _talk_ to him, will you?”

Wei Wuxian frowns, glare settling deep into his irises. He chugs the bottle whilst maintaining eye contact. He proceeds to exit the room wordlessly, stalking out as resentment exudes out of his every pore.

* * *

“I didn’t think you’d meet me here.”

The bar is dimly lit, the table sticky from all the fallen liquor and beer.

“Mm…” Lan Wangji dips his head slightly in acknowledgment. His lips remain straight, yet pursed. The ribbon that used to line his brow is now tied back, similar to how Wei Wuxian ties his hair.

Wei Wuxian drums his fingers on the bar table, staccato. Impatient.

The silence is awkward, just as Wei Wuxian assumed it’d be. It’s why he’d asked Lan Wangji to meet with him in the bar. At least he’d be able to drink and watch others have a good time while passing his own time by.

Lan Wangji was always a man of few words, so it’s surprising to hear him be the first to speak. “How is… your business running? The dreams.” 

Wei Wuxian laughs, more strangled than usual. The image of Lan Wangji’s file sits glaringly within his consciousness. He couldn’t afford to reveal the real reason he’d approached his ex—his… target—or else he’d face permanent damage with the person whose opinion he’d cared for the most. 

“Good! They’re… it’s going as well as it can, I guess.” This time, Wei Wuxian feels as though he sounds deranged.

Lan Wangji merely dips his head once, then sips at his water. It is probably a good thing he’d just gotten a glass of water; had he ordered anything else, Wei Wuxian isn’t quite sure how the meeting would have turned out.

Wen Qing, Jiang Cheng, and Wen Ning had all pushed for it, after all. If there was one thing that Wei Wuxian despised doing, it was disappointing the people he’d already failed once before.

“‘S been a while, right?”

“Mm.”

The silence feels like a punch to the gut. Violently awkward. This is how Lan Wangji operates, this is how he was brought up; Wei Wuxian just isn’t used to it anymore.

He laughs nervously. He would have to start somewhere, right?

“I never stopped loving you, Lan Zhan. I thought of you every minute of every day since I left you.”

The speed with which Lan Wangji’s head upturns is uncharacteristic of him; his golden eyes flash with something—some form of heavy, unnamed emotion—and his lips drop wide open in shock.

“Wei Ying?” He frowns, perturbed.

“I never meant to break us up, not like that at least. Not because of _that_.” Wei Wuxian shrugs, half-heartedly.

“Wei Ying.” This time, Lan Wangji’s voice sounds different. His tone sounds… steady. Accepting, even. As if he’d expected the words to come out of Wei Wuxian’s mouth.

Wei Wuxian’s laugh is more strained now. He feels pressed for time, though he doesn’t exactly know why.

“Why aren’t you asking me anything?” He takes a large sip of his drink. “Why aren’t you angry with me? After all, I broke up with you on the farce of falling _out_ of love with you. Lan Zhan, anyone who falls out of love with you is lying, just as I have.”

“Wei Ying,” this time his voice is soft. Full of love, full of kindness. His eyes glimmer underneath the dull lighting, the gold shining a light on the misgivings in Wei Wuxian’s heart. “It does not matter, I understand.”

“I wanted to say that it was because I could never uphold the traditions of the La—what?”

“It does not matter. I understand. You did what you needed to, back then.”

“What does that mean?” The guilt at what he may have to do in the next few months weighs him down further. He deserves none of Wangji’s love, he never has.

Lan Wangji’s lips upturn, ever so slightly. His version of a smile. “It means that, regardless of where we are, Wei Wuxian. Be it within our lives, within the aspect of space and time, be it with each other, that I will be here waiting.”

“But… why? You _are_ free to do as you please, Lan Zhan. Please, _please_ , do not let me hold you back any further than I already have.”

Lan Wangji just smiles again, serenely. As though Wei Wuxian could never do anything to hurt him, not after the way their past is already dictating their future.

“You must ache, Wei Wuxian, for you to bloom. I, too, have never stopped loving you. I, too, will think of you always as I have been.”

“Lan Zhan?” Wei Wuxian starts back, his glass forgotten. The bar grows silent; there is only Lan Wangji right now, nothing else has ever mattered more than Lan Wangji.

“Mm. It may not be correct for us now, Wei Ying, but it will be in the future. And whenever that time happens for you, I will be here. Yes?”

Wei Wuxian can only manage a faltering nod, his heart heavy. He’d never stop loving Lan Wangji, but it was only a matter of time before Lan Wangji realized how much of a betraying fool Wei Wuxian was.

And, with this closure, Wei Wuxian wasn’t sure he’d be able to cope with such a parting a second time around.

**Author's Note:**

> i do hope you enjoy this, as this was in fact my very first jump into mdzs and mxtx fandom fanfiction as a whole. also, wangji's "bloom and ache" line is a direct interpretation of serendipity, from bts, whoops.
> 
> kudos, comments, and concrit are always welcome/appreciated and if you like my style of writing, feel free to subscribe! hmu on [twitter](http://twitter.com/illumirne/) for more! ♡


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